Hello Kitty Island Adventure preview: depressed egg yolks are magic

Island Adventure has the potential for mainstream success when it arrives on the Nintendo Switch and other platforms

Hello Kitty Island Adventure / Sanrio

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of South Park,” Hello Kitty Island Adventure’s director Tom Blind tells me with a completely straight face. I just asked him if Sunblink had named its game after the 2006 South Park episode Make Love Not Warcraft, where Butters tells the gang that he spends all day “playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure”. There is more to the cute and cozy Sanrio Island simulator that meets the eye, and it’s more than just the name.

You would be forgiven for overlooking Hello Kitty Island Adventure and its upcoming release on PlayStation, PC and Nintendo Switch. It launched on and is currently exclusive to Apple Arcade, meaning that it had to be capable of running on an iPhone, and it stars Hello Kitty, everyone’s favorite teenage girl dressed in a cat fursuit. On the surface it seems to be catering to a very specific market; Sanrio-obsessed young women who want to swim like a mermaid. While Hello Kitty Island Adventure certainly works for this demographic, if you start playing it you’ll see that it’s more Breath of the Wild than Animal Crossing.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure / Sanrio

It all starts when Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters crash land on a deserted island that clearly used to be inhabited. Empty shops line the town square, and even more concerning, several members of the gang have gone missing. You travel around the island completing quests for those around you, which opens up more of the world. The island is vast. There are more than 80 hours of quests to complete for the various Sanrio friends and this is aside from the innumerable hours you can spend decorating houses, inviting guests over and dressing up your character.

Blind explains how Breath of the Wild was one of the major influences for Hello Kitty Island Adventure. You traverse a huge open world, climbing cliff faces, collecting resources, and crafting items, all without encountering any invisible walls. There are even shrine-like dungeons with environmental puzzles that you need to solve. Your custom character can travel as far as their stamina and equipment will allow them, including gliding off peaks and exploring the depths as a mermaid (mercat?). Island Adventure is as much about exploration as it is about furnishing your home.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure / Sanrio

The family-friendly Sanrio characters aren’t the only ones you can find on the island. Gudetama, an egg yolk known as much for their luscious rump as their unending sense of ennui, can be found all over the island. Aggretsuko, a red panda and short-tempered office worker, is part of the main cast. Every character from Sanrio’s vast library was available for use by Sunblink, and while the team had to ensure they remained true to their character bios, they were given free rein to flesh them out. For example, My Melody is known for her desire to help others, so it makes sense that she would want to help fix the island’s broken infrastructure.

Not only can your Sanrio friends join you on your journey and help out with quests, but your real-life friends can too. Everything you do on Hello Kitty’s island, they can do with you, and you can even give them a house to stay in whenever they visit your island. Multiplayer is at the core of Hello Kitty Island Adventure giving you the opportunity to create a real-life community of island adventurers. During my one-hour playthrough on Nintendo Switch the frame rate was very choppy, but I was assured that a steady 30fps will be ready for launch.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure / Sanrio

Hello Kitty Island Adventure might seem like it’s only made for young cute-loving women on the surface, but so did My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and that never stopped Bronies from enjoying it. Island Adventure has the potential for mainstream success, but it will depend on whether people are willing to give it a chance. Releasing on multiple platforms with no microtransactions or additional costs, hopefully more people will want to earn their own mermaid’s tail.